The patient's name was Sarah Vex.
Twenty-nine. No criminal record. Mild anxiety disorder. Worked at a library. Lived alone. Never traveled farther than two states away.
But last week, she walked into a police station with blood on her hands and said seven words that shouldn't have meant anything.
"I'm Elara Vane. They rebuilt me wrong."
Now she was locked in a private psychiatric facility on the outskirts of the city, under twenty-four-hour surveillance, and a medical watch order that flagged her file for review by several anonymous departments.
Jack bypassed them all.
He didn't ask permission. He didn't check in.
He just walked in with a borrowed ID and a white coat he hadn't worn in years.
The room was on the third floor. Reinforced door. Triple-glass window. Cameras pointed both in and out. She sat on the bed in a gray hospital gown, bare feet on the floor, hands clasped in her lap. No restraints, no drugs. That was what made it worse.
She didn't look unstable.
She looked calm.
Like she was waiting for him.
Jack entered quietly, shut the door behind him, and pulled a chair across the floor. He sat a few feet away, just outside arm's reach.
Sarah looked up.
Her face changed.
Her eyes widened. Not in fear.
In recognition.
"Jack," she whispered.
He said nothing.
She swallowed. Blinked rapidly. "You came. I didn't think you would. They said you wouldn't find me again. Not in this… skin."
He studied her.
The resemblance was faint. A gesture here. A curl of the mouth. A tone in her voice that mirrored Elara in her quietest moments.
"Tell me your name," he said.
Her voice caught.
"Elara Vane," she whispered again. "But they told me to forget. They changed my files. My face. I don't know what's real anymore. I hear her. Every night. Talking. Screaming. Praying."
Jack didn't move. "Who does she pray to?"
Sarah's hands trembled. "To you."
He tried not to react.
"Why did you come here?" he asked.
"Because I remembered things I shouldn't. Places I've never been. But I know the smells. I know the sounds. I know the cold in that archive. And when I heard the train whistle last week…" She looked up, eyes wet. "I remembered you. You were bleeding. And I was dying. Or waking up. Or both."
Jack leaned forward slightly.
"What do they want with Elara?"
Sarah hesitated.
Then her whole body shifted—posture, voice, expression—like she was switching masks.
"They want her perfected," she said.
The word rang in the room like a blade being drawn.
"They're not trying to bring her back," she continued. "They're trying to isolate her essence. To strip away what made her human. No fear. No guilt. Just precision. Loyalty. They think if they carve away enough of her memory, they'll find obedience."
"And you?"
Sarah looked at her hands.
"I was a failure. Too emotional. Too soft. They injected me with memories. Images. Her voice. I tried to become her. But I remembered being Sarah. I remembered loving books and collecting dead leaves in the fall. They called it 'residue conflict.' Said it was irreversible."
Jack exhaled through his nose. Quiet. Measured.
He could feel the ground shifting beneath him again.
"How many more of you are there?" he asked.
Sarah looked up. Her voice dropped to a whisper.
"At least six."
"And the real Elara?"
Sarah smiled, sad and strange.
"She's hiding. In one of us. Maybe in all of us. I don't know anymore."
Jack pulled a photo from his coat. Rhea. Standing beside the Janari statue. The one from the auction six months ago.
Sarah reached for it.
Her hand trembled as she touched the image.
"She was closer than any of us," she said.
Jack studied her carefully. "What makes her different?"
"She wanted to forget," Sarah replied. "The rest of us clung to memory. Rhea… she let go. That's why the memories settled. She stopped fighting them."
Jack didn't speak.
If what Sarah said was true, then Rhea wasn't an impostor. Or a coincidence.
She was the cleanest vessel.
The one who embraced Elara's ghost instead of resisting it.
"Where did they make you?" Jack asked quietly.
Sarah closed her eyes.
"A house with no mirrors," she said. "Underground. North of the city. Surrounded by trees. They call it the Hollow House. That's where they do the carving. Where they take what's left and try to make it beautiful."
A knock came at the door.
Time was up.
Jack stood.
"Sarah," he said. "If you hear her again… what would you want me to tell her?"
She looked up slowly.
"Tell her to burn it all down."
He paused. "What is 'it'?"
Sarah smiled.
"You'll know when you see it."
Jack walked out into the hallway, past orderlies pretending not to listen, past patients muttering to ghosts of their own.
Outside, the rain had started again.
He pulled out his phone and called Lena.
"She was telling the truth," he said.
"You sure?"
"She told me about the Hollow House."
Lena went quiet.
Then, "You're not going there alone."
"I won't."
"Jack—"
"I'll bring matches."
He hung up.
As he walked down the street, a streetlight flickered above him. Out of the corner of his eye, he caught a shape.
A woman, watching.
When he turned, she was gone.
But she'd been wearing Elara's coat.
The one he buried.